hot pink organic food

Vanilla Cupcakes with Organic Lemon Raspberry Frosting


These cupcakes I baked last week served as a useful reminder that even the best marketing tactics cannot reverse the damage of poor product design. I could create the earthiest looking package, printed with nutrition facts in enormous text and maybe an endorsement from Alice Waters, and still you would be hard-pressed to believe that these cupcakes are all-natural, made with organic fruit. In fact, you might just wonder whether Alice Waters has lost her way.

The real story doesn't matter - the one where I pureed the organic raspberries and zested the organic lemons in my kitchen, and whisked the fruit mixture into my bowl of handmade buttercream frosting until I achieved the perfect balance of sweet, creamy, and tangy.

These cupcakes are hot pink, and that says it all - assume artificial flavoring, high fructose corn syrup, Red 40...processed. Welcome to the era of the savvy consumer - we know how to spot fake food when we see it, and we're not afraid to judge.

Which poses an interesting dilemma for the natural food business, I realize. Do food scientists and marketers in natural foods actually have to design their products to look "natural"? (Is it not enough for the product to be intrinsically so?) Can an all-natural cupcake ever be topped with an all-natural hot pink frosting, or are such natural baked goods restricted to the earth-toned glazes of maple, chocolate, and vanilla?

stags' leap winery

STAGS' LEAP 2002 ESTATE GROWN CABERNET SAUVIGNON, THE LEAP

While there's no bad time or place for a glass of Cabernet from Stags' Leap Winery, a particularly good time would be sunset on a summer evening in August, and a particularly good place would be among the Estate Cabernet vines at the Winery. (And winemaker Kevin Morrisey would be particularly good company.)

"THE LEAP" ESTATE VINEYARD, STAGS' LEAP WINERY


I've always believed in immersing myself in the products that I work on. When I consulted for an air purifier company, I kept up to date on EPA regulations for ultra fine particles. I ran humidifiers, lit candles, and played ScentStories in my apartment to immerse myself in the experience of my personal indoor air.

For the three months that I worked on a project for a greeting card company, I scrutinized my own relationships with others in the world - and sent out more cards, emails, e-cards, text messages, and handwritten notes to friends and family in those months than I had in the previous three years combined.

Hotel bedding, GPS devices, breast cancer, birthday cards, nuclear power plants, bipolar disorder, ATV helmets, fried fish...my years as a consultant have allowed me to delve into a number of different worlds, each as fascinating as the last, to someone perpetually curious about different things and people.

Fortunately, the company I work for shares my belief that one must understand a product deeply - who makes it, where it is made, how it is made and why it is made in such a way - in order to market and sell it. As such, my work periodically involves "kicking the dirt" at our vineyards. Learning that story behind the brand is critical...and fun.

Stags' Leap has a particularly good story. (Have you heard about the ghost?)

CABERNET GRAPES AT STAGS' LEAP
June 29. 2007


CABERNET GRAPES AT STAGS' LEAP
August 15, 2007

destination dining

BACKYARD AT AMERICAN FLATBREAD


When I was growing up, my family frequented Chef Chow's, Chef Chang's, and Mary Chung's. We were motivated to eat out when grandma wanted a break from cooking, and we needed to nourish our bellies. We expected decent food and drink and little else - bottom line was that it would never be as good as grandma's anyway.

But today most restaurants strive to appeal not only to our bellies, but also to our hearts and minds. They invite us to indulge in different moods and settings. They broaden our global awareness, exposing us to the unfamiliar spices, wines, utensils, and music of various cultures; they deepen our respect for nature and the environment as our teacher in the philosophy of eating seasonally; and they constantly challenge our understanding of how a "meal" can be defined.

Restaurants in the U.S. are delivering on more human needs than ever before. As such, many have become "destinations" that people are willing to traverse anywhere from 3 -or 3000- miles to experience. The Michelin Guide has finally granted its internationally-respected nod to those restaurants in San Francisco and NYC it considers "worth the journey" (more recently it also added LA and Las Vegas). Chicago has become a notable culinary destination in the U.S. after the city's Board of Tourism created an official position called the Director of Culinary Arts and Events in the late 90s.

Several years ago, I traveled to the Mad River Valley of Vermont, about 3.5 hours from where I lived at the time in Boston. Food and Wine had run an article about American Flatbread's primitive wood-fired stone and clay ovens set in a converted horse barn in Waitsfield. I felt compelled to witness this experiment in "post modern bread baking" founded on principles of environmental sustainability, community building, and "global forces of peace and understanding".

The pizza was good - it was as good as it gets for any handmade pizza topped with fresh, natural ingredients. But you can find pizza that good elsewhere (The Cheese Board in Berkeley, CA and Arizmendi in San Francisco, to name two). It was the flavor of the wood-fired crust coupled with the triumph of my journey, and the introspective and restorative nature of the property - that made American Flatbread such a fulfilling dinner destination worth every stretch of my 200 mile trek.